Math 442A - Winter 2007
Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces



Lectures

Monday/Wednesday/Friday
12:30 - 1:20
Raitt Hall (RAI) - Room 116

Instructor

Daniel Pollack
Padelford Hall C-550
Phone: 206-543-1809
pollack@math.washington.edu

Topics


The Course

 This course is an introduction to differential geometry through the study of curves and surfaces in Euclidean space. We will establish elegant results concerning the geometric structure of these objects and their relationship with topology. This course will lay the foundations for a further study of differential geometry which, among many other things, forms the basic language of many aspects of modern physics. This course will also provide for the exploration of many tools in analysis which are used throughout modern mathematics.

Text

 The text for the course is Curves and Surfaces by Sebastian Montiel and Antonio Ros.
This is a new text, which treats this "classical subject" from a thoroughly modern perspective. It is written by two leading researchers in the field.

Homework

Homework will be assigned on a weekly basis, see the Weekly Assignments page for the problems due. You are responsible for all the problems assigned. The homework will be taken from the book, both from the exercises within the text as well as those at the end of each chapter. It is recommended that you do all of the Exercises from with the body of the text, not just those that are assigned. There are hints to solving many (though not all) of the exercises at the end of each chapter. You are free to use these but you will benefit from attempting to do the problems on your own first, before looking at the hints.

The assignments will be collected each Wednesday starting on Wednesday, January 17.

It is very important to do all the homework in order to learn the material. A good way to be sure you get the most out of your homework is to work with others. I encourage you to form study groups and work collaboratively on the homework problems. The only limitation on collaboration is that, after you and your study group have worked out how to do the problems, you must each write up your own solutions in your own words. A large part of the emphasis in the homework is to practice, and improve on, your ability to write clear and rigorous proofs.

The TA/Homework grader for the course is:

CourseNameOfficeEmail
442-A Andrey Pestov PDL C-446 pestov@math.washington.edu

Andrey will hold office hours on Tuesdays from 1:00-300 pm, to enable you to ask specific questions regarding the homework.

Exams

There will be 1 midterm exam given in class on Friday, February 9.

The final exam will take place from 8:30 - 10:20 am on Thursday, March 15, 2007 in TBA.

There are no make-up exams. If you have a compelling and well-documented reason for missing an exam, speak to me about it at least one week before the exam.

Grades

 Your grade will be determined based on the following

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